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I've done a little searching, and Jet hot & Performance Coatings seem to be the two that pop up most. Does anyone have any direct experience with either company?

Thanks

http://www.jet-hot.com

http://www.performancecoatings.com

I think Swaintech is supposed to be really good stuff. You might check them out.

I had jet hot do the Ford Motorsports shorty headers on my van and was very pleased with how they turned out. I had them do the sterling treatment. The headers were bare and I wanted to avoid any rusting problem and keep the heat away from the doghouse.

I also had Airborn coatings in Oklahome do the exhaust on my racebike and it held up extremely well over the years. They also did the exhaust manifolds and piping on my 6.9 with the banks diesel. That was a waste of time and money. The manifolds rusted badly I believe because of the porosity. The guys at Airborn were a couple of guys that used to work for one of the big name coating places , and I think they were in Oklahoma too. Is jet hot in Ok? I just about bet that the big name place had a proprietary ingredient that they couldn't use and that was why the rust set in so quick, or else they didn't prep it good enough.

I don't have any before and after temp readings which would be a good thing to relate, but I would need some instruments for that. I still will use that type of product in the future.

Jeff

Thanks for the comments Jeff. I need to do some calling and talking with the different shops.

That's a good idea about before and after temps.....I might have to buy one of those laser pointer thermometers

Those laser pointer heat guns are expensive. I was going to buy one to compare temperatures with my intake manifold spacer before and after. Decided not to because of price.

You can get a cheap one for like $35 but they have a bigger temperature variation of accuracy +/-. The better ones are like $80+. It was more than I wanted to spend on a good one and I didn't want to buy a crappy one.

I thought they were actually somehow measuring the temperature with the laser itself but I found out that the laser is only for aiming. It's actually measuring with infrared.

Yeah, from what I found, you can expect to pay around $80-$100 for one.

I bought my multimeter from these guys and have been very happy with it. A little less expensive than a Fluke, but very comparable in terms of the ability.

http://www.davis.com/

I will probably end up getting the laser thermometer from them.

I really really want a thermal imaging camera.....but those are a couple grand

I had performance coatings do my manifold, up-pipe, and down-pipe. They did a fine coating job, but there was some sand/blast media left in the up-pipe. I vacuumed it out, no problems because of it.

As for the effectiveness of the coating, it is amazing. A few minutes after a drive that made the TMIC too hot to hold, I could grab the downpipe comfortably. I could also touch the manifold cross pipe easily, while noticing the heat from the oil filter. This was after a couple minutes of cool down, but it was still impressive.

I'd second SwainTech... They just did my pistons and bearings for my VW turbodiesel; ceramic on the piston domes, and low-friction coat on the skirts and bearing faces. Very quick turnaround. They're up around Rochester, NY.

Their header coating is white, which is a bit odd, but holds up very well from reports I've seen.

I'm going to be getting SwainTech's "White Lightning" exhaust coating on the headers and up-pipe.

From the research I did, it's put on much heavier than most other coatings out there. Cost is very similar to JetHot, which I also priced. It'll probably be about $320 + shipping.

I will probably paint the white coating with black high temp paint for asthetics since road grime and nastiness is bound to collect and turn the white brown.

I finally got my IR thermometer. Driving around normally in city traffic with little to no boost. the exhaust manifold was around 650 deg F. So I'm sure after a good romping, it'd be hotter. We'll see what temps are like after the coating.

I got the new exhaust manifolds back from SwainTech this week. The coating looks good, and they did a good job wrapping everything up. Cost for the headers and up-pipe with shipping back to me was just under $300.

I did some initial testing with the infrared thermometer and I was seeing around 300 deg F at one point, and after a drive around it was around 400 deg F. I need to do some more testing, but that's a 250 - 350 deg F drop in temp. That's pretty significant!

Here's the pictures.

http://main.experiencetherave.com/subar ... exhcoating

Impressive temp drops.

You chose white for the coating? heh, even on your pristine car, that's going to be hard to keep clean

White is all they offer in terms of color. I was going to paint them black, but the delivery zip was wrong, and I got them a day late. It was raining and I wanted to get them installed.

Yeah....I don't expect them to stay clean, but oh well.....I'll just tell everyone they were originally gray

I checked the temps again today, and yeah they're right around 300-400 deg F.

When we get some warmer weather I'll have to check again. The stuff seems like it's working.

Does the engine bay in general feel cooler?

I really hadn't paid attention, but I'll be putting some miles on the car this week, so I'll try and keep an eye on things.